Sonata in G, Common Tones
by Cantoris
Summary: Additional scenes to my series, Sonata in G. We've always had Rachel's perspective in her story, now it's the chance for other characters to have their points of view.
1. Chapter 1

And for a special treat for you all that have been following my work over the past year, some extra oneshots featuring the supporting characters of my work, _Sonata in G_. If you haven't read any of that stuff, I must highly recommend that you do or you will be hopelessly lost. A quick word about these scenes: they are random, sporadic, and completely not uniform in content, length, nor characters. Every once in a while, I feel like there is a scene that might shed some light on the events of _Sonata in G_ that cannot be included because of the first person narrative that I have going there.

And as a side note, this is also a heads up to those who have me on alert, _Sonata in G, Mvt III_, will be posted on September 1. Thanks for your patience and happy reading!

* * *

There was nothing more that Jason Gideon wanted more than to return to his apartment and sleep through the night. Guantanamo Bay was only one time zone over from DC, but the flight still tired the profiler out more than he cared to admit. Or perhaps he would summon the energy to visit Sarah and his daughter, join them for dinner or dessert, before reaching his home.

It had helped to play chess against Reid and Prentiss on the flight back. There was nothing else that could keep his attention as well as a good game against a good opponent. Gideon smiled. Spencer Reid may be a genius, but he was still young enough that Gideon could read him easily. Prentiss, as a new opponent, had been challenging in that Gideon couldn't use the experience of other games against her. She also had the uncanny ability to shield her thoughts from him, a talent that would serve her well in this field.

If her smile and desire to prove herself happened to remind him of his daughter, Gideon kept that thought to himself. Neither Prentiss nor Rachel would appreciate that sentiment.

But first, Gideon needed to drop his brief case off at his office and see if Hotch had left any kind of report for him. Their partnership in leading the BAU was slightly unorthodox, but had served them well so far. Hotch could play politics with the higher ups and Gideon could focus on the inter-team relationships. Officially, Hotch was the unit chief, but Gideon still held enormous influence and leadership on the team as well.

The BAU bull pen was dim and mostly abandoned. Their work never truly stopped so there was always some handful of agents around working on profiles and receiving requests from around the country. Both Reid and Prentiss headed for their desks to unload their own paperwork. Gideon climbed the stairs to his office, opened the door, and found that the light was already on and that he had an unexpected visitor.

"Morgan," Gideon greeted the younger man. "Is there something wrong?"

Sadly, their most recent case didn't warrant much grief in Gideon's opinion. Yes, they had lost a SWAT agent, but in light of the fact they had stopped the terrorists' attack successfully meant that there was no reason Gideon could think of to explain Morgan's presence in his office.

"Not exactly," Morgan answered ambiguously, completely out of character to his usual straight forward manner.

If Morgan was feeling guilty about shooting the one suspect at the mall which Gideon had heard about, he knew that Morgan wouldn't be coming to _him_ for a talk.

"I just thought you should know, Rachel was at the mall."

Given Gideon's desire to separate out his work life and his family life, it took him several moments to connect Morgan's statement with their case.

"The mall the terrorists had targeted?" Gideon asked to confirm.

The younger agent sighed, obviously running on the dregs of his energy himself. "Yeah. Hotch found her in the crowd and we took her home once we finished. But she was right there when the suspect fell through the glass ceiling."

It had never even occurred to Gideon that his daughter could have been in danger. The realization that had he been wrong in his interrogation and profile, his daughter would have been a victim struck him to his core.

"Thank you, Morgan. Was her mother home when you dropped Rachel off?"

"No," Morgan answered, flinching slightly when Gideon glared at him suddenly. "She insisted that she would be fine. I thought she would be."

It wasn't Morgan's fault, Gideon told himself. There was a certain type of paranoia that only came with fatherhood.

"Thank you," Gideon repeated and then waved his hand at the agent in dismissal.

Morgan almost fled the office to join his colleagues down in the pen.

Gideon wrapped up his reports quickly and then left immediately for Sarah's house. Eight years ago, when Sarah had discussed moving so that he could see their daughter more often, Gideon had been ecstatic and concerned in equal measures. Naturally, he wanted to be there for his daughter, be her father and spend time with her, but up until then, Rachel knew next to nothing about his job. That was no longer the case in many respects.

Using his copy of the house key, Gideon let himself in, finding Sarah on the couch in her robe and slippers with a cup of tea. Even after nearly four decades, she was beautiful to him.

"Jason, what a surprise."

"Is Rachel sleeping?" he asked.

Sarah frowned at his tone. "I think so. Her light is off downstairs."

Gideon sighed in relief. Whatever she had seen could not have traumatized her too much if she were sleeping.

"What's wrong, Jason?" Sarah demanded softly.

After nearly four decades, Sarah was probably the best person to read his moods and thoughts.

"She was at the mall tonight," Gideon explained, remembering the cover story he'd been told. "And there was an attempted robbery. I wanted to see if she was okay."

There was a moment when Sarah stared into his eyes, seeing down into his soul and reading the lie that had come out of his mouth. But she did not shatter the illusions between them.

"I only just got home myself, so I don't know."

Gideon nodded and then walked toward the staircase without another word. Sarah would understand his need to look in on their daughter before talking with her further. Sarah always understood.

There was no light downstairs as Sarah had said and no light on in the bedroom when Gideon opened the door a crack. In the dark, his eyes adjusted and he could make out the sleeping form of his daughter under the bed covers.

He had never planned on a daughter, or a second child at all. The comfort he had found in Sarah after his wife's death was meant to be a solitary event, just another chapter in their life long friendship. But hearing that she was pregnant with his child months later had been invigorating. Rachel's birth allowed them both to imagine what might have happened if they hadn't drifted apart after college to go their separate ways and to their separate marriages.

With his relationship with his son fading and falling apart, Gideon could try again with his daughter. Sometimes, he felt like he was succeeding and other times, he felt like he was making the same mistakes again.

And he'd come so close to losing her today without even knowing she was in danger. If he had been wrong about any single thing during his interrogation, he might not have guessed the cell's target. And Rachel would have been killed along with thousands of other innocent people. He would have failed her. Gideon knew that he would never be able to live with himself if he ever failed his daughter.

Gideon approached the bed silently, watching as his daughter hugged a pillow close to her chest in her sleep. Sometimes, she caught him when he watched her sleep, but mostly not. He was able to watch the steady rise and fall of her breathing, reminding himself that she was safe.


	2. Chapter 2

As implied before, some of these extra scenes will be much shorter than others. With this particular little addition, I really just wanted to show how the team's concerns would be affected by Rachel's presence in addition to how they react when they know the victim.

Also, about the title. It is considered good practice when writing harmony that progressive chords share a common note (ie: C-E-G to G-B-D, the tonic to dominant chords in the key of C Major) so that the harmony flows from chord to chord. Therefore, Rachel is the common tone for all these scenes, whether or not she actually appears in them. This is all now for the _Mvt II_ scenes. For some reason, I already have at least twice this planned for _Mvt III_ but I won't write or post those until the dominant chapters are posted first.

* * *

Hotch had been to this house on a number of occasions; he knew what was out of place and what was not. The purse on the kitchen counter was Sarah's, dropped off on her way in from work. Some salad ingredients were next to it, likely from Rachel's preparation for the evening meal. There was nothing in the front hall, kitchen, or living room that looked wrong.

The back bedrooms were a different story. Sarah's office was mostly untouched, except for the desk chair rolled out to the middle of the room, the remains of rope and duct tape on the floor, and the vomit to one side. It was the master bedroom that really screamed out that something tragic had happened in the house this night.

Hotch had met Sarah when she and Rachel had moved to Virginia eight years ago. He found her to be a strong woman, a loving mother, and a good friend to Gideon above all else. Even Hotch's profiling skills had never definitively told him whether or not Sarah and Gideon were a romantic pair again or if they were only raising their daughter together. It seemed that the friendship predominated and precluded the romance.

It was why Hotch knew, no matter how the evidence was stacking up, it was impossible for Gideon to have butchered Sarah like this and kidnap their daughter. It didn't matter that Hotch's intellect was reminding him that Gideon could have suffered a mental breakdown—and considering what the man had been through, not entirely unexpected—and might not know reality from hallucination. He let the police spin their theories because they couldn't possibly understand the depth of feelings Gideon had for Sarah and Rachel. He simply wasn't capable of this, logic be damned.

"Oh my God," a voice said behind him.

He looked around and saw that his team had arrived, each of them looking shocked or sickened by what they found.

"Rachel…?" Prentiss asked, as if fearing the worst.

"Missing," Hotch assured them. "The police think this is a custody fight gone horrifically wrong."

"Bull shit, man," Morgan swore. "Who's feeding them that crap?"

"I don't know," Hotch answered. "But we haven't been called in to consult on the case."

Murderous looks erupted on both Prentiss and Morgan's faces while JJ and Reid still just looked worried.

"JJ, snap as many photos as you can with your phone and send them to Garcia," Hotch ordered. "Reid, tell me what you think of the office."

The young genius spun around with alarming speed. Hotch followed.

"The unsub tied up Rachel in here while he killed Sarah," Reid reported quickly. "There are scuff marks on the carpet showing that the door was opened and closed several times tonight, so it might be that Rachel didn't see anything."

Hotch could only pray that was true. "Why kidnap Rachel and kill Sarah?"

"Sarah is a message," Reid answered. "The unsub might be using Rachel as leverage or bait. A teenager would be easier to control than a grown woman."

Suddenly, Reid bent down and took a pen out of his pocket to prod at something on the floor next to the vomit. Hotch looked over his shoulder and shuddered.

"It's a rib bone," Reid identified. "And there are fingerprints on it."

"Hotch," Morgan called out from the hallway. Soon, the other agent had joined them in the office with Prentiss at his side. "There's a rib bone missing from Sarah's body."

"Reid found it," Hotch pointed out.

The rest of the profile fell from their lips quickly, leaving them with one answer: Frank.

"But he always gave the rib bones to Jane as gifts," Prentiss debated. "Why leave it here this time?"

"These prints are too small to be a man's," Reid told them. "Frank gave the bone to Rachel."

"You mean, now Frank has Rachel?" Hotch demanded. It would certainly follow the psychopath's pattern to kill and kidnap and the victimology for killing the woman and sparing the child.

Reid shook his head, looking relieved for the first time since walking into the house. "Frank would have made sure Rachel held on to the bone if he had taken her with him. Gideon was here like the witnesses said, and he did take Rachel with _him_, not Frank. Rachel dropped the bone, and—"

"And threw up," Morgan finished. "Which means that Gideon and Rachel are on the run."

Hotch doled out additional orders. "Call Garcia and tell her to try and locate Gideon's or Rachel's phones. We need to find them."

Later, when Hotch would learn that their prediction of the events was almost completely accurate, he would spare a thought for the trauma Rachel must be feeling as well as Gideon. But he would always feel grateful that Frank had left Rachel untouched and hadn't thought to abduct her. Not that he wished Tracy Belle had been put in danger, but Rachel had been through enough.

The team would feel guilt for this case for the rest of their lives. It wasn't only Gideon that had failed to catch Frank in Nevada. And Rachel was the one to pay the ultimate price for that failure. It was at Sarah's funeral that Hotch swore he would never fail that girl again.


	3. Chapter 3

If there was only one skill that Hotch had picked up once joining the BAU, it was how to move silently through his house. He had been no stranger to extreme hours as a prosecutor and as a SWAT agent, but once he was regularly being called into the field at any hour of the day or night (really, _any_ hour), it became paramount to be able to get up, get dressed, and out the door without waking Haley or Jack, and vice versa for coming in at all hours.

It was how he managed to make it out of bed whenever he needed the quiet hours of the night to think in private without questions. And how he was able to walk into his guest bedroom one night to check on his temporary charge.

Intellectually, Hotch knew that Gideon needed the time to center himself in the wake of the tragic case that resulted in the death of a suspect, his aspiring victim, and Hotch's suspension. Gideon's own two week leave was self-imposed. And mostly, Hotch suspected that Gideon needed the time to truly come to terms with Sarah's death. Even the weeks he had taken off earlier in the summer hadn't really been productive in that way because of Rachel.

At first, Hotch remained in the doorway, peering into the dark bedroom to find the sleeping teenager under the covers. It couldn't be easy on her to be spirited away to Hotch's house while her father retired to his cabin. Whatever pain Gideon felt after Sarah's death, there was no doubt that it was doubly painful for Rachel. And instead of having her remaining parent there to support her, he had left her behind.

Again, Hotch could understand Gideon's need for solitude and could even argue that Gideon would be better able to help his daughter once he himself was balanced again. But those thoughts and reasons always left Hotch feeling skeptical even in his own mind. Rachel needed her father, now more than ever, but was currently cut off from him.

It wouldn't be easy for any of them in the next two weeks. Haley was putting more pressure on Hotch to switch teams. Hotch was conflicted on the matter himself, weighing the needs of the team against those of his family—his own desires were secondary to those both. Gideon was off in the woods for his soul searching while his daughter…

Hotch watched as Rachel turned over in her sleep, hugging a pillow tightly to her chest and curling around it, an anchor in her dreaming. She settled into sleep again, seemingly resting peacefully, but Hotch was certain it was only a mask Rachel wore, even while sleeping. It saddened him that a seventeen year old girl felt the need to hide her pain even in her dreams. The profiler in Hotch listed out all the likely behaviors and stages that Rachel would go through in the next weeks, months, and years. It wouldn't be easy, but somehow, Hotch hoped that she was strong enough to overcome all the difficulties.

If Gideon was no longer around to help his daughter with that, then Hotch would make sure that he was there for her himself.

* * *

Notes:

Yes, I know this one is short, but I didn't want to beat it into the ground and there's more to come anyway. I'm going to try to update these extra scenes as they fit best into the flow of _Sonata in G_ proper. Thanks for reading, another one of these should be up next week as well.

Cantoris


	4. Chapter 4

Spencer Reid knew panic as one of his common states of mind, had been since he was eleven and realized what could happen if the authorities ever found out about his mother. With a career as an FBI field agent, he was already ahead of his fellow trainees in more ways than just his intellect. With panic as a constant companion, he knew how to work through it and use it to get the task done.

Reid knew fear as panic's close cousin. Fear of discovery, fear of failure, fear of mockery, and fear of death and loss. He had felt fear in a hospital ER room in Des Plains, Illinois. He hadn't known when to stop fearing a cabin in the Georgian woods. He had felt fear, looking at the body of his mentor's closest friend and realizing that his daughter was missing.

And Reid felt fear when Gideon hadn't returned when he said he would, fear which only deepened as Reid's calls went unanswered.

"You're driving out to his cabin, aren't you?" Hotch asked as the team disembarked from the plane on their private strip after Milwaukee.

"Yes," Reid answered levelly. He had already stated his concerns the day before, concerns he knew Hotch shared but couldn't address while a killer was free and a victim was in jeopardy.

Hotch nodded grimly. It seemed he did everything grimly lately. "Call me when you get there."

Reid could plainly see that Hotch wanted to come with him, but the older man had more responsibilities calling on him, including his wife and Rachel. Reid winced to think about the girl, dreading what he would find at the cabin, or not find. But there was nothing for it but to get on the road and find out once and for all.

He had never been to the cabin personally. One of the first things to learn about Gideon was his adherence to separation of work and family. It was why Reid had been so surprised to be invited home with him for chess games, and then invited to Sarah's house for dinners. But where Gideon was often aloof and would step back for Reid to figure something out on his own (like good mentors should), Sarah was warm and inviting. Reid sometimes imagined what it would have been like to have had Sarah as a mother. But he did love his own mother and would quickly banish those thoughts.

And Rachel was something Reid never thought to encounter in his life. She had been thirteen when he first met her, struggling with geometric equations. Reid knew that he hadn't done a very good job tutoring her at first, based on the scathing looks she would give him when she thought he couldn't see, but as she grew accustomed to Reid's idiosyncrasies and Reid learned how to talk to a teenager (something he had never mastered really despite going to school with them since he was nine), they grew to like and respect each other.

They shouldn't have had anything in common between the age difference, vastly different childhoods, and the vast difference in intellects. But they were both only children since Rachel had effectively been raised alone. And they both had Gideon, for good and ill.

At that exact moment that Reid was walking up the dark and imposing cabin, he almost wished that Rachel had never gotten close to her father and that he himself was at some university, working on experiments all day. Then maybe Sarah, warm and loving Sarah, wouldn't have been killed, Rachel would be in sunny California and Reid wouldn't feel like throwing up as he opened the unlocked door.

Maybe one of the others would have seen the service weapon and FBI shield and then searched the rest of the cabin frantically for a body. But Reid's brain processed quickly past _Oh my God, Gideon's killed himself_ to _He's gone and left us all behind_. The two white envelopes, each marked with a name, really only confirmed Reid's theory without him needing to read the one titled with his own name.

He sat at the desk and switched on the light. Before opening his letter, he pulled out his phone and dialed.

"Gideon's not here," he told Hotch. "I have his badge and gun and he left Rachel a letter."

_"She fell asleep a half hour ago,"_ Hotch replied quietly. _"I'll bring her into the office tomorrow morning."_

After hanging up, Reid still didn't open his letter. He stared at the two envelopes, side by side. _Spencer. Rachel._

An entire team and his family abandoned, but Gideon only felt the need to leave messages for his daughter and for himself. An amateur could deduce that Gideon was distinguishing them as his children and the two he was most sorry to leave.

And if that meant that Reid and Rachel were now siblings, Reid was ready for that. Rachel would be wrecked by this, and on some level, so would Reid. Losing a father wasn't new for him, so he could be there for Rachel as she experienced it herself.

It was what big brothers were for.

* * *

Notes:

Nothing too earth-shattering in here, I don't think. But I kind of wanted to show Reid's thought process as well as his impressions and feeling for Rachel.

Thanks for reading, I hope that everyone is enjoying these little extra scenes. Reminder that chapter four of _Mvt III_ will be posted on Saturday.

Cantoris


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